Final+Proposal


 * Formal Proposal**
 * Tom Miller**

//Background:// I am doing this project because golf is my favorite sport, and I feel it has some originality to it as a project. Everyone does projects on baseball or football, but I chose golf knowing that I would not become excessively bored by the end of the semester. When I first started researching golf I saw a lot of topics that were boring, and pretty easy. For example I was going to do a project on how golf began, but it was just not interesting enough to make a good project out of. When researching further on how golf started I noticed how different the game itself was, and how clubs, balls, tees, and other tools of golf were different. This led me to choose my driving question, how has the sport of golf evolved technologically from when it began hundreds of years ago and what effect has it had on players?

//Vision:// When this project is completed I think it will make a difference on how people view sports overall. I think others, as well as myself will see how athletes from different eras are truly incomparable. Technology and knowledge have totally changed player’s abilities and golf is a great example. My driving question will be addressed through statistics of how golf technology affects player ability, and facts about which technologies existed during particular time periods. My final product will be very visual. It will involve visual objects as examples and a power point of some sort.

//Goals://
 * Understand how the came of golf was played when it began.
 * Present project in an interesting and interactive manner.
 * Be able to compare different golf technologies hands on, probably clubs.
 * Get people to appreciate golf as a sport.
 * Use my expert effectively in my final project.

//Products:// Products I want to achieve will be a video in which I will use my expert to show how what club you have can make a huge difference. In the video I will have my expert hit two different golf clubs and then I will go mark which ball is where so the audience can clearly see one is further than the other. My second product will be a PowerPoint I will use to present my information in an appealing and interesting manner. Lastly I will also have a thesis based paper to informatively present my project.

//Task Analysis:// In order to complete my project successfully I will need certain materials and resources. These resources include golf clubs, golf balls, and the cooperation of my topic expert who will be a huge part of this project. I want to have a video with my expert on golf technology done by this weekend. Other major deadlines I need will be finishing my formal proposal by the today, a completed research paper by November 11, and my presentation and portfolio by January 4th. Along the way My expert and mentor will have to complete progress reports for me, and I will have progress reports for myself.

//Mentor// //and Topic Expert Analysis:// My mentor is my father and I selected him because he is always on my back about doing my homework. I have told him about this project and he is already familiar with it because my brother struggled with it years ago. He is going to be a good mentor because he won’t let me fall behind and do a shoddy job like my brother did. Every night my dad has asked if I have done senior seminar homework and if I am making the deadline my teacher has laid out for me. He keeps trying to give me ideas on how to present my project and I have not taken interest in any yet, but at least he is trying. My expert is my uncle who is a PGA golf professional and golf teacher who can be a lot of use for my project. I selected him for the obvious reason that he is very knowledgeable in the game of golf. My Uncle has begun to help me and will help me in the future. I am going to use him in a demonstration video, and he has pointed my towards some good books that he owns that I will need to read to see if I can use them. I plan to talk with my expert over the next couple weekends to do work on my demonstration and research aspects of my project. Thankfully we have fun together so I do not mind seeing him.

//Conclusion:// This project is important because this is the project I have been getting ready for my entire high school career. This is why I have done all the projects I have, because it was to get me ready for this. I will have to use my organizational and presentational skills I have learned in high school to do this project. I am going to build on my public speaking skills because I have always been good at presenting to an audience. My weakness I feel is my knowledge of computers. This includes my knowledge in PowerPoint, and places I can research. I plan to simply ask Mrs. Valenza for help and use my peers to help me with the tools I can use for my presentation. Overall I think time management won’t be a problem for me because I am taking this project very seriously. I plan to stay motivated because I have picked a topic that I am personally interested in and want to learn about. Overall this project will be a good experience when it is all over and done with because of it’s difficulty, and the skills I will practice to do it.